While this was being done, Isoline climbed up beside Howlie, and the young men wished her good-bye.
“You will ask your uncle?” said Harry, looking earnestly into the hood.
“Yes, yes,” she said, waving her hand. “Good-bye, good-bye, Mr. Fenton, and thank you for taking such care of me!”
Then the vehicle lumbered into Crishowell Lane with one wheel almost up on the bank.
“Can you drive, boy?” she asked nervously.
“Yaas,” replied Howlie; “can you?”
[CHAPTER XII
GEORGE’S BUSINESS]
IT was well into the middle of January, and a few days after Isoline’s arrival, before Rhys was sufficiently recovered from his injuries to move about; luckily for him, no bones had been broken, and George’s simple nursing, supplemented by the Pig-driver’s advice, had met every need. The slight concussion and the exposure had brought on fever, which left him so helpless and weak that he could not rise from his bed without help, while the strange place he was forced to inhabit held back his progress, for he could get no more fresh air than was admitted by the openings in the wall. When he was able to walk again, George would drag him up the ladder after night had fallen, and he would pace unsteadily about the potato-patch, ready to disappear into the cottage at the faintest sound of an approaching foot. But such a thing was rarely heard near their God-forsaken habitation, and, when it was, it belonged to no other than Bumpett. Had he searched the kingdom, he could not have found a safer place in which to hide his head, than the one chance had brought him to on the night of his flight.